The Bloofer Lady
by Angelo diMusica
Summary: A short story based on Bram Stoker's Dracula. Takes place during Miss Lucy Westenra's attacks as an undead.


Author's Note: This is based on Bram Stoker's Dracula ****

Author's Note: This is based on Bram Stoker's _Dracula_. It takes place before Miss Lucy Westenra was _killed_ for the second time. She still exists as one of the un-dead. This is the account of one of the young children in Hampstead on the odd occurrences with _the bloofer lady_. It's not very good, just came to me while I was reading the book. Nice and short, wouldn't let you suffer that much.

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The Bloofer Lady

By K. Jihyun H.

I was out playing with Jack and Tom, his younger brother. We were having a wonderful game of hide-and-go-seek in the heath. All those trees there make it a prime spot for hiding and it's real difficult to find you if you're hiding there. It was getting dark but we didn't want to stop. I remembered my mother telling me to mind the time and come in before the sun set, so after a bit we started for home. 

The whole of Hampstead is afraid. For the past three days, children have been disappearing nightly only to be found later at night or even in the morning. They all say they've met a _Bloofer Lady_ who took them for a walk. Just recently, the neighbor's son, Harry went missing.

"Have you heard?" asked Jack after we stopped for a breath at a clearing, on the way home. "Harry Dobbson's gone missing last night and was found this morning. S'ppose it's the _Bloofer Lady_?"

"Who's dat?" asked Tom, who was only five years and didn't know much of anything, and I told him so. 

"Don't you know? People are saying that there's this real pretty lady who asks 'em to take a walk with her. And they disappear for a while. Then they show up later on, in the middle of the night or early the next day. But they've got these two little holes in their neck, like," replied Jack pointing to his own neck. 

"People say them wounds are from a rat or small dog," I added enthusiastically, wanting to put in my own bit, basically taking word for word what my mother had said. "But all the same the police is making sure that no one's out at night just as a precaution."

"You know there's vampires out and about in England," said Jack, trying to scare his brother even more. "I heard someone saying that _Bloofer Lady_'s a vampire. You'd better watch out."

That's when little Tom was beginning to be afraid. All the way home he was looking behind him, as if he expected the _Bloofer Lady_ to come by. He was starting to get us scared too, so we started to run. I suppose that's when we lost him. Neither one of us knew where he was when we got to the door, just supposed he'd gotten home before us.

When I got in, my mother chided me a bit about being out late and all, but nothing too serious. That's when Mrs. Wilkes came by. She was looking really afraid, said she didn't know where Tom was. Then she asked me if I had seen him.

"No ma'am. Jack and I was running back home and we supposed that he'd gone ahead of us somehow," I replied, truthfully.

"I should think you'd go asking after the police. They'll be sure to find him; he couldn't have gone far. All those other children who were missing were found," said my mother as she led Mrs. Wilkes to a chair. "You just wait right here and I'll go get some folks to go find little Thomas for you, don't you worry now."

Well, they looked for Tom all night but he never showed up. Everyone was right worried about him. After a while I fell asleep, so I don't know how long they were looking for him. In the morning when I woke up my mother told me they found Tom under a furze bush at the Shooter's Hillside of the Heath. She took me over to see him after breakfast. 

"How you doing?" I asked Tom when I came up to his room where he was lying in bed.

But he couldn't answer me; he looked awful, pale and ghost like. He couldn't even lift up his hand very well. The doctor, Dr. Heins said that it was from lack of blood. I felt really sorry for him. If only we hadn't left him back there in the heath, then none of this would happen. But, Jack, on the other hand, was just standing there, very interested. He was pointing to something on Tom's throat. 

"And that's where the _Bloofer Lady _bit him," he said, as if he knew everything.

"How could he be like that," I thought to myself. "His own brother and he doesn't give a care at all. To him, this is just some thing that just came up to make life more interesting."

__

Several weeks later…

After a while, Tom started to look better. He wasn't so pale, but his mother still wouldn't let him go outside. Tom still had those two little holes in his neck. They looked sort of ragged, like little white circles with red centers. Jack on the other hand, got worse. He now fully believed that a vampire had gotten hold of his brother and bit him. 

Then one day, Tom came out to play. He looked much better than he had for a while. First thing he showed me was his neck.

"Look David," he said running to me. He cocked his head pointing, "Those marks are all gone. I'm all better now."

"I told you," came a voice from behind us. It was Jack. "I bet someone drove a stake right through that woman's heart. Tom's marks wouldn't have gone away otherwise, you know."


End file.
